by C F Dunn
“I see what you mean,” I murmured.
“About?”
“About the sense of freedom up here; it’s beautiful.” I resumed the previous topic. “So, if you flew at the outbreak of the war, who were you flying for if the States didn’t join until 1917?”
“For the French initially; they didn’t ask too many questions about who I was, or where I came from. Then when the US entered the war, I joined them, but by then I was of more use in the field hospitals. The gas didn’t affect me, so I could get to the wounded more quickly than other medics.”
“Surely people noticed?”
“No – in the conditions we were working in the men were either too far gone or too grateful for being helped to make anything of it. If anyone did say anything, they just put it down to my good luck, or shell shock, or a miracle, and left it at that.”
In my mind’s eye, Matthew’s ever-young form bent over the broken bodies of the wounded and dying amid the mashed fields of the Western Front. Even through the mustard-yellow gas, his rich flaxen hair must have stood out like some vestige of hope. Then I recalled the whispered asides, the hushing looks, whenever war was mentioned at home.
“My grandfather was badly injured in the Second World War; he didn’t speak about it much, but it must have been terrible. If you can feel people’s pain, how did you cope?”
“There was so much pain that I couldn’t screen it all out and yes, it did hurt, but it didn’t kill me or leave me with lifelong injuries, as it did them. The suffering of those men was indescribable.”
“As in all the wars you have witnessed?” I said softly, guessing – although he had not said and I did not ask – that he had seen many in his 400 years of life. A shadow passed across his face.
“Indeed,” he said. “That is one aspect of war that never changes.”
I studied him in the moments it took for him to check the instrument panel and make adjustments, and wondered what he had seen, what he had felt, because no evidence lay in the untroubled contours of his face; only in the telltale tension of his eyes and mouth did it show.
“When you say the gas didn’t affect you, can anything harm you?”
“Physically? Nothing has yet – well, it can – but I heal almost instantaneously. You saw that when the bear attacked, or at least you didn’t, which proves the point. I wouldn’t like to test the theory as far as decapitation goes, however, although I’ve come close a couple of times.” Without thinking, he had rubbed the back of his neck and now, conscious of the act, seemed to find the idea faintly amusing. “No indeed,” he said philosophically; “I can’t see a way back from that.”
My sense of humour failed me at this point, his life no laughing matter.
“And emotionally, Matthew?”
Slowly, he lowered his hand, resting it on the flight controls.
“Ah, well, that’s another matter – there doesn’t seem to be a cure for the heart.”
There wasn’t much that could be said after that, and we fell silent as I tried to imagine what he must have witnessed over his lifetime, and as he tried to forget.
The plane gradually reached altitude above the sunlit cloud. He broke the silence a few minutes later.
“We’re just leaving the mainland, Emma, if you want to say goodbye.”
I shuddered. “Don’t say that, it makes it sound so final.”
Far below us through broken cloud, the coast formed a corrugated line between the blue-grey of the sea and the brown-patched land. Matthew took possession of my hand and held it beneath his with his strong fingers laced between mine.
“Why do you need your own plane? Or is it that you like the speed of it?”
“If I had a preference, I would fly a glider; it’s not as fast but there is a greater sense of being closer to the elements – and to God.” I looked at him swiftly, but he kept his eyes on the instrument panel in front of him. “I wanted something that could cope with transoceanic crossings, could manage on a short airstrip, was fast – and could take my family if need be.”
“Why might that be necessary?” I asked quietly. He didn’t reply, and at first I thought he hadn’t heard me, except that his hand had tensed uncomfortably over mine.
“I have spent all my life – my existence – trying to avoid discovery, Emma. When I lived on my own, only my liberty was at stake, although what I might have been put through by whatever regime was in power at the time, I will leave to your imagination.” I lacked neither imagination nor knowledge, and the combination of the two sent me into a cold sweat. “But now I have a family to consider, and whatever happens to me will affect them. I can never, ever risk their welfare or their happiness – not for me, not for anyone.”
Despite the frisson his words evoked, my interest prickled at the mention of his elusive family, about whom I knew virtually nothing. In the short time we had known each other, and before I discovered his true identity, he mentioned them rarely, and all I knew was the importance they held for him.
“Your family? Ellie, Harry and Joel aren’t your niece and nephews, are they?”
The engines hummed in a soothing monotone, and the time it took for Matthew to reply confirmed my suspicions.
Finally, “No, they’re not.”
I nodded. “I thought they must be your children, but you couldn’t tell me before because I would have known you are older than you appear. But that’s what you are doing by telling me, isn’t it? Risking them? Surely every additional person who knows about you puts you and – by association – your family at risk?”
His hand relaxed again and he squeezed mine lightly so that our intertwined fingers were one.
“I don’t think so, and if I didn’t tell you, would that have stopped you searching and discovering for yourself? If I had denied it, would you have believed me?”
“Probably not, no.”
“The only way I could have prevented you from knowing, Emma, is to have avoided you from the start – not to have talked to you, not to have wanted you – and I’m too selfish to have done that. I had almost persuaded myself that I didn’t need you, and that there was no connection between us. I told myself that you preferred Sam…” I tried to jerk my hand away, appalled, but he held on to it, “… yes, Sam – and that would have been a safer option for us all. But I would have had to let you die the night of the attack, and I couldn’t let that happen. By that time it was too late anyway.”
This sudden confession had my head spinning.
“I don’t understand; what are you saying?”
“The night of the All Saints’ dinner, I had a call from… somewhere, and I had to leave.”
“I remember.”
“If I stayed – if I had been there – I could have protected you from Staahl…”
“How? And anyway, you weren’t to know.”
“Yes, but that’s just it, I did know, Emma, or at least I thought it possible. You remember the attack on the girl on campus, and the murder of the woman in town?” I nodded. “I suspected they were carried out by the same person but I had no proof. I was aware Staahl had been watching you for some time. We kept an eye on you – two when we could.”
“We? You keep saying ‘we’; who do you mean?”
“Members of my family: Joel, if he was on leave; sometimes Ellie; and Harry and Dan when they could.”
That explained why Harry turned up at the diner, unexpected but oh, so welcome, the night Staahl followed me there. Then I had believed Harry to be Matthew’s nephew. Now I tried to make sense of the relationships.
“Daniel’s not your brother, is he? And Henry’s not your father?”
“No – but that doesn’t matter, Emma; what matters is that I knew and I was responsible for letting Staahl get to you when I should have prevented it. If I hadn’t come back that night you would have died, and I and my family would be safe. But I couldn’t leave you – I couldn’t just let you die – and I had to make the choice. And once I made it…” He suddenly hit the contr
ol column in front of him and the plane banked sharply to the left. “I’m a fool if I thought I hadn’t made it the first moment I met you!”
I clutched at the edge of my seat again, but already the plane had been smoothly brought back under his control. He switched to autopilot, pressed his palms to his forehead, and exhaled. After a moment in which I waited to hear him breathe, he took his hands from his head, and spoke again.
“Sorry. I’m sorry about everything. I hadn’t meant to say anything until we were back in the States; it’s all such a mess.”
His fingers flexed open like a flick-knife then shut tight, and he stared out of the side of the cockpit into the empty sky. I was still struggling to get my head around what he had said.
“You knew about Staahl but you didn’t tell me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I thought that I could protect you until such time as I gathered enough evidence to get him arrested and charged. If I had told you, you would have been alarmed without being able to do anything about it, and you would have started asking questions about my involvement.”
“Matthew, I already knew that Staahl was following me; I was already frightened.”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“And as for you, I tried not to be interested but I felt drawn to you. You are right, of course – the only way you could have stopped me from being interested in you would be to have let me die, then you wouldn’t have had a problem.”
“And I wouldn’t have you.”
“And you and your family wouldn’t be in danger of discovery.”
“And I wouldn’t have you,” he repeated.
I pressed the point. “Am I really worth it? All this nonsense when you could have had a more peaceful life?”
He fixed indigo eyes on mine. “I could ask the same thing.”
I blinked as sharp sunlight reflected off a metal facia, breaking the bond.
“I think,” I said slowly, “that if I couldn’t be with you, you might as well have left me to die.”
He smiled grimly. “You know I couldn’t have done that, don’t you? I couldn’t have left you then – I can’t leave you now. No matter what happens, I’m tied to you.”
In any other circumstance or during another conversation, to hear him speak of such commitment would have had me whooping in paroxysms of delight. Now, however, I detected an undercurrent to those words that sent a tremor of apprehension through me.
“How much do your family know? Do they understand the danger they could be in?”
“We are too closely bound to one another to keep anything hidden, Emma. They know of the dangers facing the family – that’s why we have this…” his eyes cast over the interior of the cockpit, “… in case we have to leave suddenly.”
“And has that ever happened?”
“Only once; but we have to move on every so often anyway and start somewhere new where we’re not known.”
“Why?”
“As I don’t appear to age physically, it would be a bit obvious after a bit. We stay together because of our ties of kinship, and that’s something you know a little about from all your studies, don’t you?”
I did indeed. “Yes, it’s what people are prepared to die for – that and their faith.”
“Precisely.”
“And you would risk that for me?”
“As I said, I don’t see you as a risk – do you?”
“No, I’m not; but Matthew, you couldn’t have known that – not for sure.”
“No.”
A voice sounded out of nowhere, making me jump. Matthew answered, giving a rapid sequence of letters and numbers. The disembodied voice spoke again, asking a question. Matthew paused before answering, turning to me.
“We have to take on fuel at Shannon; would you like something to eat now or would you like to wait until we’re airborne again?”
I opted for the latter.
The stopover took less time than I thought, but by the time we reached cruising altitude again, pangs of hunger told me it was past lunchtime.
“Help yourself to anything you’d like to eat or drink back there.”
I nodded, unsurprised now if he anticipated my hunger, variable though it always seemed to be. He started speaking into the headset as the plane rose above the Atlantic and I unclipped the buckle around my waist and eased out of the seat.
Restless nights and emotionally fraught days were taking their toll. I yawned and stretched, locating the built-in refrigerator and a bottle of sparkling water. The fresh fruit next to it must have been left for me, since he didn’t eat. I searched for a glass. The glossy range of bird’s-eye maple cupboards were filled with an assortment of food in packets that lay ready in case a quick escape proved necessary. It brought home just how seriously he took the threat of exposure. The question then was, how long would this jet be no more than an idle luxury, and what would be the catalyst that would bring upon him and his family the eye of the world in that brief but catastrophic declaration of his existence? Because – if the one thing that had lain dormant but festering in the back of my mind became reality – at some point in the near future, there might be a trial and Matthew would be a key witness to Staahl’s attack. If all the endless courtroom dramas I had watched over the years bore any relation to reality, key witnesses were flayed alive by the defence counsel.
I found a heavy and deeply cut glass, each facet reflecting diamond-bright in the cabin spotlights. Of course, there should be no reason for anyone to suspect that Matthew wasn’t what he seemed to be – a highly respected surgeon with an impeccable record of service to his community, a widower and a family man. I poured the water into the glass, waiting for the bubbles to subside before filling it to the top. But Staahl had accused Matthew of trying to kill him when he tore him from me, and Sam – in talking to the police – had hinted at ulterior motives. Nothing much as accusations go, and they might be taken as no more than the desperate defence of the accused and the mumblings of a malcontent – but it didn’t take much to set tongues wagging. I gulped a couple of mouthfuls of water nervously as I followed the train of thought.
History is spattered with the blood of men and women whose lives had been shattered by whispered deceits. Fiction and half-truth formed the nucleus of what I studied – the cause and effect of the events I found so fascinating. What had been an academic subject – devoid of impact upon me by time and dissociation – Matthew experienced first-hand in the accusations of those with whom he lived. In lives such as his lay the negligible difference between rumour and lies. And, by the time the difference had been distinguished, the damage was done: the rebellion started, the family hounded, the martyr burned.
I knew that nothing had really changed over the intervening centuries, for are we not taught – in that well-worn maxim – that it is in the nature of man to destroy that which he fails to comprehend?
“Did you find what you wanted?”
I started at the sound of Matthew’s voice behind me, spilling my drink. I sank to my knees and automatically began to mop at it with my hankie while I composed both my thoughts and my features.
“Emma, leave it – it’ll dry. Here…” he put his hand out to me and he pulled me to my feet, his tone buoyant, and his smile bordering on roguish.
“I’ve been waiting to do this for the last hour,” he said, cupping my face between his hands, his eyes propositioning and his mouth real, inviting, alive on mine. So alive. My eyes widened.
“Who’s flying the plane?”
Matthew laughed, “It’s on auto – remember?” and he kissed me again, lightly this time. “Come on, I want to show you something.”
He led me back to the cockpit and strapped me into my seat. I gave him a quizzical look.
“Well, I said that you’re my co-pilot, so now’s your chance to do some flying. Hands on the stick – like this.”
Ignoring my protests, he waited until I placed my hands on the controls in imitation before
disconnecting the autopilot. The plane wobbled disturbingly.
“But…”
“You’re more than capable. Right, now ease it forward and you push the nose down and the plane will start to descend. Easy now, or we’ll go into a dive. Pull up just as gently – that’s it – and you’ll pull her nose up and we’ll climb. Perfect. Keep her steady. It’s difficult to stall a plane like this – not like the older aircraft I flew – but not impossible, so we have to match her speed as well. See this?” and he pointed to a series of dials. “These show you how fast we are travelling relative to the air. This one here, whether we are flying straight and level, and this – our altitude.”
I tried to keep up. “Hang on a mo – you’ve had a few more years to learn all this than I have. Is that the altimeter or…”
“Yes, and the one next to it is the artificial horizon; keep the bar across the middle level – imagine they’re the wings of the plane. If you want to bank port, ease on the stick, so.” The aircraft moved smoothly to the left under his control. “And opposite for starboard. Go on, you try.” The plane made a more radical lurch to the right and I winced, correcting the level of pressure I applied. “That’s it, now level her up – easy. Fun, isn’t it?”
“Great!” I said with more enthusiasm than I would have thought possible five minutes before.
“Are you happy to carry on for a bit? Just keep us on that compass heading – there.”
I focused on the dials in front of me.
“Uh huh – but don’t leave me alone, I don’t want to jinx the plane.”
“I hardly think you’ll do that,” he murmured, and I blushed as I felt him watch me intently with a look that had little to do with what currently occupied my attention.
The levels of concentration required to keep the aircraft flying straight, level and on course were far more taxing than I thought they would be, given the ease with which Matthew achieved far more complex manoeuvres; but I welcomed the distraction so that my mind could not wander down the paths of fear upon which it attempted to lead me.
After a while my eyes began to feel the strain of staring at the dials, and my shoulders ached from hunching forward.